Volia, Lelia, and Rada Poloz, with Feoktista Yakovlevna Miagkova. A photo taken for Tania Miagkova.
Tania did her best to participate in the effort. When she heard that Rada and Volia had made a lot of new friends in Orphan Alley, she wrote: “I am very happy that the kids like their new apartment. What kind of families do all those children come from? What is the population of the building in general? I hope it’s mostly workers’ families (are there factories nearby?). The kids would benefit from finding themselves in such an environment.” When she decided that Rada might have literary abilities, she wrote: “I would hope that Rada would want not only to write about life, but, even more important, to create life. But it’s still very early: she can always change direction. All that is needed now is for her to march in step with our life, to feel the romance of the machine, the factory, and construction (of our Soviet machines and construction), and to fall in love with technology, or at least to become interested in it.” And when she heard that Rada had not been in Moscow for the May Day celebrations (the ones Hubert described), she wrote: “What a pity Rada missed out on the demonstration! If only I had been there with all of you to see Budenny’s Red Cavalry. This year the demonstration must have been especially rousing. It gives me so much pleasure to look at the wonderful photographs in Izvestia: the group of laughing leaders on the podium and the group of Schutzbund members, also laughing, on the same podium. Such wonderful faces! It’s a shame that the Chelyuskinites could not make it in time.”46
The Chelyuskin was a steamship that had attempted to travel the Northern Maritime Route from Murmansk to Vladivostok in a single navigation season. It had made it to the Bering Straits, but was then crushed by ice in the Chukchi Sea on February 13, 1934. The “Chelyuskinites” set up camp on an ice floe, built an airstrip, and were eventually evacuated by Soviet polar aviators during the second week of April as part of a massive rescue operation directed by Kuibyshev. Tania repeatedly mentioned the Chelyuskinites amid news and worries about her own life and kept asking her mother, who seemed similarly engaged, about Rada’s involvement. The June 5 welcome home parade on Red Square in honor of the Chelyuskinites was the biggest Soviet public event of 1934. Tania wrote about it on June 24. Or rather, she began by writing about her own hope of delivery (referring mostly to a continued uncertainty about Mikhail’s fate): “I have certainly had more than enough practice in patience and fortitude recently. There are occasional lapses: periods of depression when I can’t do any math and generally don’t feel like dealing with the world. But, first, I used to go through similar cycles even on the outside, and, second, I tend to pull myself out of such states (they are not frequent) quite quickly.” In the next paragraph, she moved on to the Chelyuskinites:
That was some welcome you all organized! I can imagine what it must have been like! Have you been reading the articles about the Chelyuskinites and their reminiscences in the newspapers? If not, get all the Pravda issues and read them. There are a lot of articles that the kids should read. What a wonderful “episode,” which has now turned into a political event of exceptional importance. The cost of the steamship has been repaid a thousand times over. And it is not just Bolshevik fortitude that is important, but rather Bolshevik fortitude imbued, at the most difficult moments, with the spark of joyous communal living, laughter, and good cheer. Now the world has truly seen what the Bolsheviks are capable of!47
Her next letter began with the Chelyuskinites (before moving on to Rada’s and Volia’s upbringing, her “mathematically organized way of life,” her “socialist experimental garden,” and her struggles with fraying stockings, bras, and nightshirts):
So, let us sum up the lessons of the Chelyuskin saga (I’ll write special “Chelyuskin” letters to the kids, too)…. The Chelyuskin saga has given the whole country a shot of heroism, united “one and all” around the general staff (the Party and Politburo), and helped every single person realize what it means to be a Soviet citizen, how precious each human being is for the country, and how precious the Soviet country is for its people—and this is all steeped in powerful emotion, a common, all-encompassing burst of enthusiasm, and a desire to be a hero of the Soviet Union along with a desire to excel at one’s routine daily tasks, based on the understanding that those tasks are connected to the common cause and to what the Chelyuskinites and the avaitors have done…. It’s been a dizzying year! Dimitrov (“hurray!”), the Schutzbundists (“hurray!”), and the Chelyuskinites (“hurra-a-a-a-a-ay!”)….
You are right, mommy, dearest: the Chelyuskin saga is a test of the achievements of the revolution—above all, its achievements in the countryside, in the matter of the rebirth of the peasant. The kolkhozes have won, and the “idiocy of rural life” is disappearing. Has not the Chelyuskin saga demonstrated its disappearance? …
I have a secret confession: while reading the newspaper issues devoted to the welcome parade (and all of them from cover to cover, of course), I—like those who had assembled at the railway station to greet them—couldn’t help crying (just a little).48
Tania’s letters were not proper confessions, and they were not confidential. They were addressed to her mother, who expected Party orthodoxy; her daughter, whose happy childhood was to be preserved; her own self, which seemed to yearn for a reconciliation with life (“I discipline myself in every way possible”); and her censors, who were responsible for helping in all these endeavors as well as—presumably—determining the degree of their success. The Bolsheviks—like most priests, historians, and the participants in the discussion of the State New Theater’s production of The Other Side of the Heart—had no clear doctrine on how to judge the sincerity of contrition. It was—and is—impossible to be sure on what occasions Tania resorted to mentalis restrictio, but it does appear likely that, for the most part, she tried her best to erase the distinction between her yearnings on the one hand and her mother’s Party-minded expectations, her daughter’s happy-childhood entitlements, and her censors’ inscrutable ways, on the other. As Dante’s nuns, who were assigned to the lowest sphere of paradise, put it, “Should we desire a higher sphere than ours, / then our desires would be discordant with / the will of Him who has assigned us here.”49
The greatest test of Tania’s fortitude—in her letters if not in her soul—came in late July, when she received the news that Mikhail had been sentenced to ten years in a labor camp.
My dear, sweet, darling mom, you are so wonderful, and I don’t know where we would be without you! Thank you and thank Lelia. You two make it possible for me to be courageous and determined and able to endure such hardships. I received your letter yesterday and marveled at myself after I read it: no depression (let alone despair) and not even much sadness. What has given me this strength at such a difficult time? It was the news of Mikhailik’s high spirits, his active desire to grab his fate by the horns and turn it back onto the right path, and his firm belief that it can be done. Mommy dear, I know Mikhas better than anyone else. I do not know what he has been accused of, but I do know Mikhas, and I know that he can and must be rehabilitated. A concentration camp? So be it! Over a period of several years? So be it! Long, difficult years? So be it! Mikhas must be accepted back into the Party. Whatever I can do to help him, I will. Above all, I must be with him for the rest of my term, wherever he may be and no matter what the conditions. I have already written a short application to the Secret Political Department, and now I must wait. I have tremendous hope that I will see Mikhailik soon—and that is the second reason why I was in an almost exultant mood after reading your letter.50
Being together, even if in prison, was better than being apart; being involved in labor, even if forced, was better than being isolated; and being exultant over such news was proof, if proof were needed, that both Tania and her mother had passed another test.
To be honest with you, I still don’t know what constitutes a harsher punishment, an isolator or a concentration camp, but I think that, in the case of a ten-year sentence, a concentrati
on camp is much better: first, it means working and therefore participating in the life of the country; second, it means the possibility of a shortened term. Ten years in an isolator, on the other hand, has an air of hopelessness about it. One of the many reasons we love the Soviet order is because it has no prison term fetishism, and ten years is not really ten years, but only what you manage to make of them. There is no place for hopelessness in our—very tough—system … One thing continues to make me feel good about my reaction to all this. A comrade with whom I shared some of my news and feelings in this regard asked me half seriously and half jokingly, “But you’re not angry with the Soviet order, are you, Tania?” I was silent for a while, and then gave a totally serious answer to what was probably an equally serious question, despite the jocular tone: “No, I’m not angry at all.” I needed to be silent because I wanted to test myself once more to see if all these difficult personal experiences (and not my own this time) had affected what I might call my emotional-political feelings (sorry for the clumsy word). And that’s the third reason your letter gave me such a shot of energy: your own reaction to what has been happening. I was afraid for you, mommy dear. I was afraid that these unexpected blows, and such heavy ones, too, might undermine you physically and morally and destroy your view of things, but now I see that there is not even a hint of that. So this means that, generally, everything is fine, though Mikhailik is in a concentration camp, and I am in an isolator. There is nothing to fear, “as long as we have the Soviet order and our mutual love for each other.”51
In her letter, Feoktista Yakovlevna seems to have mentioned that Mikhail’s interrogators in Kiev had made some favorable remarks about Tania’s letters. “I won’t lie to you,” Tania responded, “such an assessment from such an institution—indeed, especially from such an institution, is far from being disagreeable to me. But I’m afraid the Moscow GPU does not share this opinion of my honesty and sincerity. Say what you will, but I did receive three years in an isolator after being accused of duplicity.” And this was the final and most important benefit of the news about Mikhail:
Yes, the advantage you write about, mommy dearest—the “conclusiveness and irreversibility” and the “getting rid of all the birthmarks” is a huge thing. My comments to you on this subject have been short and dry, though I could have written much more, and in greater detail. It’s just that I am somewhat inhibited by the possibility that my letters on this topic might be regarded as a duplicitous move, and that is very unpleasant, as you can imagine … I used to be extremely skeptical of prison conversions, but now I can see what an inaccurate and superficial view that was. I can’t help thinking that, had I been sent into exile, my development would have been much slower. Sometimes it is useful to hit a person over the head with a club (at least it has been in my case). Of course that does not mean that I am very happy to have ended up in an isolator. Still, if I were faced with the dilemma: the isolator and a genuine break with Trotskyism or Moscow and my prior semi-Trotskyite views, I would not hesitate to choose the former.52
There was nothing Tania could do about the obvious danger that claims of sincerity might be interpreted as proof of duplicity. All she could do was wait. “Waiting without the slightest possibility of doing anything about it ought to have been included as a separate punishment for sinners in one of the rings of Dante’s inferno … At the same time, even in the rings of Dante’s inferno, life clearly goes on.” She rearranged her belongings (“so the only thing left to do would be to put them in suitcases”), resolved to work even harder, and devoted the rest of her time to imagining the future. “My dream,” she wrote to her mother on August 12, “is for the concentration camp to be in a forest and for me to arrive in the fall when the birches and aspens are yellow and red … (But that’s just a dream: I would take the concentration camp even without the birches and aspens).”53
I want to think about our future, [she wrote to Mikhail on the same day], at first tough and difficult, perhaps, but then (definitely!) sunny and joyful.
I really want to hear from you that you are also sure about our good future together … But first I want you to rest alongside me.
Because being together is a form of rest, isn’t it, my dear? I am also tired after all this time and want to lay my head on your chest …
Oh how I long for our meeting, Mikhasik, my love …
I kiss you and love you.
Don’t be angry with me for writing the same thing over and over again. It’s just that I always feel the same thing. And so strongly!54
Mikhail responded by saying that he was, indeed, sure about their good future together, that he was on his way to Kem, on the White Sea, and that Kem was a “lovely” place. Tania could finally make concrete plans for their life together. “Let us adopt the slogan, ‘a ten-year plan in four years (and preferably less),’” she wrote on August 17, “and let us work toward that together (in case your sentence is not overturned). Together … Mikhas dear, I am a little worried about being so sure that I’ll be with you. I can’t think of any possible reason for a denial, but I’ve gotten so used to the idea of coming to live with you (I have even determined the time: I’ll arrive in September, when the forest is red and gold) that it will be very hard if there is a delay of some kind.” She agreed that Kem sounded good but worried about whether it was possible “to grow flowers and start a vegetable garden there.” She was still not sure if he was going to Kem, or via Kem, to Solovki. “The latter may be even better, because the camp up there is very well run and the nature is beautiful.”55
Two weeks later, Tania was told that Mikhail had been sent to a timber-rafting camp within the White Sea–Baltic Canal camp system. “The fact that Mikhas is in the White Sea–Baltic Canal camp made me happy,” she wrote to her mother on August 30. “After all, it is one of the best camps, very well run, and the construction itself is interesting. But the timber rafting part has me a bit worried. Is it possible that instead of working as an agronomist or surveyor, Mikhas is wielding a pole? That would not be ideal, although, if that is the case, we should probably think of it as a period of ‘production startup costs.’ After all, even in timber rafting there are lots of jobs appropriate to his specialty, perhaps even some surveying work.” While waiting to find out, she followed the newspaper reports about the first Congress of Soviet Writers (“it’s too bad the kids did not send Gorky their letter about which books they like and what sort of books they wish writers would write”) and read a lot of poetry. One of her old favorites was Walt Whitman. “What enormous strength! What an extraordinary joy of living! What a powerful interpretation of my favorite quotation: ‘I love life equally whether I am on a horse or under it. Life is equally beautiful in joy and in sorrow.’”56
Ten days later, Tania was informed that her application had been turned down. “I cannot say, of course, that this decision was not a blow to me,” she wrote to her mother, “but I seem to have gotten used to them over the years, so please don’t worry about my mood. I worry more about Mikhas, about how he will take this news in the first months of his ‘new life,’ especially without our letters.” Her own new life required some tightening up, but no major revisions:
Tomorrow I’ll put together a precise schedule for the remaining year and four months. Nothing came of the concentration camp idea, so we’ll try a different tack. In addition to higher mathematics, I plan to get through mechanics and draftsmanship (as well as descriptive geometry). This is the main thing, and if I can pull it off, I’ll consider it a huge achievement. I also want to finish Das Kapital and work on my languages. These last few weeks have shaken me somewhat. My self-discipline faltered a bit, though I never abandoned my studies for more than the briefest of periods. But now I will pull myself together … As for my undershirts, three are in decent shape, and the rest are all worn and thin the way Lelia likes them, but they should last through the winter just fine. My blouses are also worn and frayed, including even—you won’t believe it—the lilac gingham one (the one jus
t like yours). For the winter, I’m planning to make a blouse out of that tangerine flannel you sent me. Also, I wonder if I shouldn’t make a white blouse with long sleeves from that linen sheet that was too wide. What do you think? I did a brilliant job washing the black wool dress in mustard, but the seams are coming apart at the armpits. The lace, on the other hand, which had faded in the wash, is now a metallic steel color and looks very festive. It would be nice to have some gloves (women’s knit ones), but only if you happen to run across them. There’s no need to go out and look for them specially: I can get by with my mittens. The same goes for felt boots. Mine are still fine, but I am writing in advance, just in case. As for shoes, the gray canvas and black leather ones are completely worn out, but both the yellow and black pairs of walking shoes are still in good shape. So, the winter and spring are taken care of (and summers here you can get by with cloth slippers) … Mommy dear, perhaps sometime you could send me photos instead of a parcel? It’s been a whole year since I’ve seen Rada (since her last photograph).57
Almost two months later (on November 5 and November 10) she received two letters from Mikhail. He was in Solovki, and the letters had taken about a month to arrive. He was not allowed to write to Moscow, so Tania would now become the center of the family’s delicate epistolary web. “He writes that the situation there is more difficult than here. It must be true, and I have never doubted it. Besides, I think that he generally finds it much harder than I do to adapt to unfavorable circumstances. But don’t be afraid for him, my dear, and don’t worry too much. Solovki is no worse, and may be even better, than any other camp. Mikhas has inner strength. He will ‘settle in,’ and we will help him in every way we can.” In the meantime, his main worry was about the children. (Tania was very happy that he considered Volia one of his own.)58 Now that he was gone (and along with him the maid, special passes, and House of Government services) the children needed to grow up—without leaving their happy childhoods behind:
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